McCarthy,+Cormac

=Cormac McCarthy= By: Alex Pisano, Michael Schwartz, and Evan Slon ** Bio: ** Cormac McCarthy was born on July 20 1933 under the name Charles McCarthy. He attended the University of Tennessee, although he did not graduate. He has two children one born in 1962 (Cullen McCarthy) and the other born 1999 (John McCarthy). He comes from a southern background, and lives now in Tesuque, New Mexico, near the Santa Fe Institute. He enjoys his privacy, and lives with his son and wife. He’s been married three times, the first to Lee Holleman in 1961, then again to Annie DeLisle in 1967 after a divorce. He divorced Annie in 1981 and married Jennifer Winkley in 2007 after their child was born.

McCarthy Shuns interviews, having very few published for his fans contentment, but he does enjoy conversation, thus his interviews take on a more conversational tone. He generally speaks the way he writes: in very matter-of-fact ways with dark humor in the face of facts. He comes from a southern background and the topics of his interviews generally turn from his work to some aspect of living in the south, like encountering venomous rattlesnakes or what brand of boots is the best for the terrain. He has, however talked about his books, and how writing about death is something that all writers should do, and those who don't he regards as strange.

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**__The Road__**. || media type="youtube" key="5RmgK0ds2d4" height="410" width="558" align="center" || **Some of McCarthy's most famous works, all of which where made into major motion pictures:** It is a post-apocolyptic tale of a journey of a father and his young son over a period of several months, across a landscape blasted by an unspecified cataclysm that has destroyed much of civilization and, in the intervening years, almost all life on Earth. The novel was awarded the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Fiction in 2006. [|For more onTHE ROAD] media type="youtube" key="hbLgszfXTAY" height="282" width="504" || Reader Reactions to THE ROAD: My initial reaction to the ending of __The Road__ was disappointment, accompanied by strands of anger and depression. Do not get me wrong, I found the novel almost excessively gripping; I could not put it down. I read the entire novel in only one day; the whole time feeling like the slow moving plot was going to build to some fantastic climax where “the good guys” would trump the bad guys. However, this is not the case and no happy-ending-catharsis was indulged. The most fascinating part about McCarthy’s writing is how real it all feels. He captures brilliantly the feelings of hopelessness, the pure primal instincts, and the constant creeping fears, as well as vividly describes the scenery and setting of the duos journey down the desolate road. I found myself engrossed in the novel, hoping with every turn of the page that the father and son would reach salvation. The part of the book that I found most frustrating was when they reached the bunker full of food, which could have sustained them for months, and decided to leave it in a few days. WHAT!? I was livid. Here these two have stumbled upon a post apocalyptic jackpot and decide to leave just because it is “too exposed.” Clearly, the father should have applied more effort to hide the bunker. McCarthy gave the characters the salvation I had longed for and then cruelly takes it away. Although the ending was not what I yearned for, I cannot argue that it didn’t perfectly fit with the tone of the rest of the book: dark, depressing but with glimmers of hope. In terms of literary merit, __The Road__ is up there with the bests, but I wouldn’t recommend it to someone. It made me sad, so very sad. (Michael Schwartz) I found “The Road” an interesting thought experiment and compelling, if you found it within yourself to try to connect with the two main characters. While the prose was interesting and the descriptions vivid, yet the overall lack of any action or any truly significant events coupled with the downer ended would make it almost completely inaccessible to the reader who picks it up looking for a fast read and the cataclysmic series of events so typical of the post-apocalyptic genre. Yet I thoroughly enjoyed the book as I found the characters interesting and the depressing ending contextual logical. I felt sympathy for the son as his father put an almost unbelievable amount of stress upon him to be his own father's conscious and he retained that feeling in this depressing land that is the only world he knows. And at the end, his father leaves him with nothing as he dies on the beach. The writing was fantastic and it the McCormac never failed to portray exactly how stark and depressing the world he has chosen to portray is. (Alex Pisano)
 * Here is a clip of Cormac Mccarthy on Oprah, describing what inspired him to write his award-winning novel
 * [[image:grovesaplit2/the_road.jpg width="162" height="250" align="left"]] || ==**THE ROAD**==

[|For more on NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN] media type="youtube" key="YBqmKSAHc6w" height="283" width="504" || Reader Reactions to NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN: I found Cormac McCarthy's “ No Country for Old Men” incredibly interesting and fun to read. His minimalist descriptions, maximizing dialogue and action push the book forward at a pace that evokes the feeling of a movie and allow one to just relax and enjoy the book as a story, rather than feeling compelled to search for deeper meanings inside each action and phrase. Would I count this as one of the best books I've ever read? No, but that doesn't mean that it wasn't an incredibly fun read with believable characters and well-written gunfights that manage to convey a degree of tactics rather than the random deaths that most writers write into the story. He makes it believable that a pair of men were able to deny the Cartels their prize for as long as they did. All in all, No Country for Old Men was an incredibly fun read. The novel tells of John Grady Cole, a sixteen year old cowboy who grew up on his grandfather's ranch in San Angelo, Texas. The story begins in 1949, soon after the death of John Grady's grandfather, when Grady learns that the ranch is to be sold. Faced with the prospect of moving into town, John Grady leaves home accompanied by his best friend Rawlins in hopes of becoming cowboys in Mexico. [|For more on ALL THE PRETTY HORSES] media type="youtube" key="yygkQ8SjjQk" height="346" width="462" || Reactions to ALL THE PRETTY HORSES: When I first started reading __All The Pretty Horses__ I felt as if the book was moving excessively slowly, nothing much happens up until John Grady and Rawlins decide to run away. However, as I got deeper into the novel I was really engrossed by the rugged cowboy feel of the novel. The talk, the tone, the scenery all felt very western and I liked it. However, I couldn’t help but notice a shift occur after John Grady’s love affair with Alejandra. Everything seemed to get darker, more real. Of course, much like __The Road__, the ending was extremely dark and gloomy and didn’t make me very happy; yet, it seemed almost more authentic, like a more logical and realistic outcome than the typical. Also, I have to admit I have really started to enjoy McCarthy’s writing style; he can just say so much with so little. McCarthy is truly a master writer and I would recommend the book more for the experience of reading it than for the plot itself.(Michael Schwartz)
 * [[image:grovesaplit2/No_country_for_old_men.jpg]] || ==NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN==
 * Set along the United States–Mexico border in 1980, the story concerns an illicit drug deal gone wrong in a remote desert location. The title comes from the poem " Sailing to Byzantium " by William Butler Yeats . The book was adapted into the 2007 film // No Country for Old Men //, which won four Academy Awards, including Best Picture **.
 * [[image:grovesaplit2/All_the_pretty_horses.jpg]] || ==ALL THE PRETTY HORSES==

Critical Essays on THE ROAD

“He held the boy close to him. So thin. My heart, he said. My heart. But he knew that if he were a good father still it might well be as she had said. That the boy was all that stood between him and death.”(29) In his novel, __The Road__, Cormac McCarthy uses the young boy to analyze what it means to be human, how our soul and sanity can be maintained though the existence of innocence around us. In the book the boy stands out at as a bright light in a world of darkness and madness; he is the reason the man has the strength to continue. He also makes the boy out to be a sort of God. McCarthy is making a point that when society crumbles around us, and all seems lost, as long as childlike wonder and innocence exists in the world that we can hold on to our last scraps of humanity. (Michael Schwartz) For more:

Review Essay on ALL THE PRETTY HORSES: For the first thirty years of his career, Cormac McCarthy was a little known but critically acclaimed cult author. Then, with the publication of his masterful novel __All the Pretty Horses__, the first book of his Border Trilogy, McCarthy finally gained the mainstream audience and awards that had eluded him. Like most of McCarthy’s work, __All the Pretty Horses__ has a dark presence about it. One can sense always that misfortune is around the corner, just a few pages forward. I think the reason that the book attracted so much attention is that there’s just something so profound about McCarthy writing; it’s different, provocative, it breaks the mold. In this novel, McCarthy does away with preconceived notions about idealistic westerns and creates a more realistic portrayal of cowboys and westward expansion. McCarthy creates John Grady Cole, a 16-year-old boy who retains a romantic vision of the cowboy culture, but places him in a profoundly unromantic reality. The book primarily concerns itself with romanticism verses realism in frontier culture. (Michael Schwartz) For more:



Review Essay on No Country for Old Men: (Evan Slon) Essentially, reviews of No Country for Old Men were all the same: Cormac McCarthy used a new writing style, a new setting from his previous books, and he replaced his southern prairie philosopher persona with that of an action thriller. Some folk enjoyed the new McCarthy: some did not.



Critical Essay on The Road (Evan Slon) The first thing a reader will notice after finishing Cormac McCarthy’s //The Road// is that there is no certain explanation for how the apocalypse happened. There is no specific citation of whether it was a mass meteor strike, or a spike in volcanic activity. There are always those who fear a nuclear winter and the disastrous effects therein, and then there are the biblical doomsayers who claim the end is near. McCarthy doesn’t care how it happened, and that’s not important to him, what is important is the difference between the man and the boy. He cites that in interviews: how his son and his growth inspired this book. He talks about the wisdom that is a child’s purity, how they’ve yet to be corrupted by survival and age. He carries this so much so, that he takes it to the logical extreme, and makes the boy a messianic figure. The boy’s character innocence and compassion are exemplary of an Abrahamic messiah who, even in the face of self-detriment, always chose to help the needy. Even in the bleakest and most desolate of situations, there is and will always be a light to guide those who need it.



Review Essay on The Road (Alex Pisano) As I said before, the only thing left constant within this world is the Road. As Tolkein wrote: //The Road goes ever on and on// //Down from the door where it began.////Now far ahead the Road has gone,////And I must follow, if I can,////Pursuing it with weary feet,////Until it joins some larger way////Where many paths and errands meet.////And whither then? I cannot say.//

Critical Essay on NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN (Alex Pisano) "Cormac McCarthy's “No Country for Old Men”, with its fast-paced storyline, focus on gunfights, rural desert setting, and deeply philosophical ramblings wouldn't feel out of place inside an old western. Its characters and the later events of the novel, felt entirely in touch with more modern “realistic” genres, especially when we look closer at them... Cormac shows the result of such [old fashioned values] in a modern society."



Works Cited:

"The Man Who Understood Horses." Rev. of //All The Pretty Horses//. //The New York Times// [New York]. //Www.nytimes.com//. Web. .

"All the Pretty Horses (novel)." //Wikipedia//. Wikimedia Foundation, 03 Nov. 2012. Web. 12 Mar. 2012. .

"All the Pretty Horses: The Border Trilogy Volume 1." //Www.cormacccarthy.com//. The Cormac McCarthy Society. Web. 12 Mar. 2012. .

"The Road." //Wikipedia//. Wikimedia Foundation, 03 Nov. 2012. Web. 12 Mar. 2012. .

"No Country for Old Men." //Wikipedia//. Wikimedia Foundation, 03 Nov. 2012. Web. 12 Mar. 2012. .

"Review of All the Pretty Horses." //BrothersJudd.com//. Brothers Judd Good Books. Web. 12 Mar. 2012. . Madson, Michael. "The Road." //Southwestern American Literature// 32.1 (2006). //Literature Resource Center//. Gale. Web. 12 Mar. 2012. Malin, Irving. "The Road." //Hollins Critic// 44.4 (2007). //Literature Resource Center//. Gale. Web. 12 Mar. 2012. McCarthy, Cormac. //No Country for Old Men//. New York: Knopf, 2005. Print. McCarthy, Cormac. //The Road//. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2006. Print. Semeiks, Jonna G. "Cormac McCarthy. The Road." //Confrontation// (2007). //Literature Resource Center//. Gale. Web. 12 Mar. 2012.